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I Can't Write Anything For Myself. I Can Write When I Hear Like [john] Coltrane Play Something; I Used To Write Chords And Stuff For Him To Play In One Bar. I Can Write For Other People, But I Don't Never Write For Myself.

-Miles Davis

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I Can't Write Anything

Miles Davis

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I Can't Write Anything For Myself. I Can Write When I Hear Like [john] Coltrane Play Something; I Used To Write Chords And Stuff For Him To Play In One Bar. I Can Write For Other People, But I Don't Never Write For Myself.

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In Other Words, An Instrument Should Be An Extension Of You; It's Supposed To Sound Like You - The Way You Walk, The Way You Dress, You Know.

If I Have A Dynamite Bass Player - I Have Darryl Jones - It's So Easy To Write For Him Because He's Such A Funky Kid And He's Gifted. He's Like A Little Genius.

With "we Are The World," I Can't Even Eat When I Watch That On Television. If I'm Eatin' Some Food, I Have To Put It Down. I Feel Very Strongly About That.

If You're Not Nervous Then You're Not Paying Attention.

I've Come Close To Matching The Feeling Of That Night In 1944 In Music, When I First Heard Diz And Bird, But I've Never Got There. . . . I'm Always Looking For It, Listening And Feeling For It, Though, Trying To Always Feel It In And Through The Music I Play Everyday.

That Was My Gift . . . Having The Ability To Put Certain Guys Together That Would Create A Chemistry And Then Letting Them Go; Letting Them Play What They Knew, And Above It.

In Music, Silence Is More Important Than Sound.

All My Inspiration Comes From Ahmad Jamal.

I Put All Those Synthesizer Sounds Behind "decoy" And "code M.d." A Lot Of Things We Write Together. A Lot Of Things Are His, But They Don't Have That Thing I Want On The Bottom. I Often Tell Him, I Say, "bobby [irving], If There's A Melody, There's Another One Somewhere That Goes With It."

We Don't Play To Be Seen. I'm Addicted To Music, Not Audiences.

Always Look Ahead, But Never Look Back.

Coltrane, You Cant Play Everything At Once!

I'll Play It First And Figure Out What It's Called Later.

In Respect For Drummers, See, I Love Drummers.

Play What You Know And Then Play Above That

I Usually Write From The Rhythm Section...if A Drummer Got A Funky Beat On Some Things - Like A Half-shuffle Or A Shuffle Or A Backbeat That's Even - I Can Write Something.

I Never Thought Jazz Was Meant To Be A Museum Piece Like Other Dead Things Once Considered Artistic.

If You Don't Know What To Play, Play Nothing.

It's Like Swimmin' Without Warmin' Up, Yuo Know What I Mean? So [cackles] We Use The Drum Machine, And We Take It Out.

You Can't Play Anything On A Horn That Louis Armstrong Hasn't Played

If You Sacrifice Your Art Because Of Some Woman, Or Some Man, Or For Some Color, Or For Some Wealth, You Can't Be Trusted.

I'm Always Thinking About Creating. My Future Starts When I Wake Up Every Morning... Every Day I Find Something Creative To Do With My Life.

You Should Never Be Comfortable, Man. Being Comfortable Fouled Up A Lot Of Musicians.

I've Used [drum Machine] Because I Have To Have The Perfect Tempo.

If You Make A Suggestion And [musicians] Don't Know What You Mean, You Have To Be Able To Do It Yourself. I Often Sit Down On Drums And Show 'em Just Exactly What I Want. And I Do It And Then Say, "how Do You Do That?" It's Because I Know How It Looks, I Know What I Want To Hear, And I Don't Drop Or Rush Any Tempo. It Ain't In My Body, It Ain't In My Nephew's Body.

When I Heard Coleman Hawkins, I Learned To Play Ballads

My Future Starts When I Wake Up Every Morning.

Morning Inspirational

Tom Jones Is Funny To Me, Man. I Mean, He Really Tries To Ape Ray Charles And Sammy Davis, You Know. He's Nice-looking; He Looks Good Doing It. I Mean, If I Was Him, I'd Do The Same Thing. If I Was Only Thinking About Making Money.

John Lee Hooker Is The Funkiest Man Alive

I Think Every Negro Over Fifty Should Get A Medal For Putting Up With All That Crap.

Keith, How Does It Feel To Be A Genius?

Lionel [richie] Said, "yeah, I Learned Chords And Stuff Playin' Against Your Albums."

Catch Harry Belafonte. He's Got A Helluva Rhythm Section.and So Have The Pointer Sisters. And That Little Guy With Sammy Clayton. He Plays The Whole Show With 40 Members.

I Was Minding My Own Business When Something Says To Me, "you Ought To Blow Trumpet." I Have Just Been Trying Ever Since.

In High School I Was Best In Music Class On The Trumpet, But The Prizes Went To The Boys With Blue Eyes. I Made Up My Mind To Outdo Anybody White On My Horn.

Birth Of The Cool' Became A Collector's Item, I Think, Out Of A Reaction To Bird And Dizzy's Music. Bird And Diz Played This Hip, Real Fast Thing, And If You Weren't A Fast Listener, You Couldn't Catch The Humor Or The Feeling In Their Music. Their Musical Sound Wasn't Sweet, And It Didn't Have Harmonic Lines That You Could Easily Hum Out On The Street With Your Girlfriend Trying To Get Over With A Kiss.

That's The Way You Judge A Car, Man, [good Or Bad], When You Start It Up. It's Just The Same Thing. I Mean, I Drive A Ferrari - Not To Be Cute, But Because I Dig It. I'd Rather Drive A Ten-year-old Ferrari Than One Of Them New Things-they Don't Go.

To Keep Creating You Have To Be About Change.

A Lot Of People Ask Me Where Music Is Going Today. I Think It's Going In Short Phrases. If You Listen, Anybody With An Ear Can Hear That. Music Is Always Changing. It Changes Because Of The Times And The Technology That's Available, The Material That Things Are Made Of, Like Plastic Cars Instead Of Steel. So When You Hear An Accident Today It Sounds Different, Not All The Metal Colliding Like It Was In The Forties And Fifties. Musicians Pick Up Sounds And Incorporate That Into Their Playing, So The Music That They Make Will Be Different.

...people Will Go For Anything They Don't Understand If It's Got Enough Hype. They Want To Be Hip, Want Always To Be In On The New Thing So They Don't Look Unhip. White People Are Especially Like That, Particularly When A Black Person Is Doing Something They Don't Understand...that's What I Thought Was Happening When Ornette Hit Town.

I Used To Enjoy All The White Bands When I Was A Kid Listening To The Radio. But The Record Companies, They Take Music And Label It - Like, They Say "rock". Because The White Singers Can't Sound Like James Brown, They Call Him "soul". They've Been Doing That For Years. That's The Prejudice Crap.

You Have To Know 400 Notes That You Can Play, Then Pick The Right Four.

When We Edit The Music, I Always Remember, "it's My Band. Save Me A Place To Play."

Jazz Musicians Are So Comfortable. The Reason They Can't Do What We Do Is Because They're So Comfortable Doin' What They Do.

When I Went In There, We Used Drum Machine On "time After Time" And "human Nature".we Don't Use The Drum Machine To Play A Pattern. You Play The Pattern By Being Consistent.

If You Have A Tone Like Mine That Is Recognizable. No Matter What I Play, When You Hear My Tone You Can Tell It's Me.

You Want To Know How I Started Playing Trumpet? My Father Bought Me One, And I Studied The Trumpet. And Everybody I Heard That I Liked, I Picked Up Things From.

Don't Be Afraid Of Mistakes - There Are None.

I Can't Write Anything For Myself. I Can Write When I Hear Like [john] Coltrane Play Something; I Used To Write Chords And Stuff For Him To Play In One Bar. I Can Write For Other People, But I Don't Never Write For Myself.

People Will Go For Anything They Don't Understand If It's Got Enough Hype.

Audiences - They Like Colour, You Know. I Can Go Out There Wearing A Red Suit, Man, And They'll Say I'm Out Of Sight ... I Think They Should Be Educated; You Should Always Drop Something On An Audience ... When You Get In Front Of An Audience, You Should Try To Give 'em Something. After All, They're There Looking At You Like This. You Can't Go Out And Give 'em Nothing.

It's Not The Note You Play That's The Wrong Note - It's The Note You Play Afterwards That Makes It Right Or Wrong.

I Couldn't Do "what's Love Got To Do With It", Tina Turner Because It Wasn't The Right Tempo; So I Scratched It From The Record. I Wanted To Do It About A Year Ago, But Something Happened.

If I Hear A Song Like "time After Time." I'm Sittin' There Lookin' At Video And Cindy Lauper Comes On Singin' This Song. I Said, "god Damnnnnn!"

[prince] Could Very Well Be The Duke Ellington Of Rock 'n' Roll.

I Don't Like To Hear Someone Put Down Dixieland. Those People Who Say There's No Music But Bop Are Just Stupid; It Shows How Much They Don't Know.

It Takes A Long Time To Sound Like Yourself.

They [police] Do Me Like That All The Time! "what You Work For?".

I Ain't No Entertainer, And Ain't Trying To Be One. I Am One Thing, A Musician.

It Took Me Twenty Years Study And Practice To Work Up To What I Wanted To Play In This Performance. How Can She Expect To Listen Five Minutes And Understand It?

I Don't Wanna Talk About Teo [macero]. He's A Helluva Musician, A Brilliant Musician, But He's Just Not For Me, That's All. I Can Elaborate On It, But I Don't Want To Do That.

I Think The Greatest Sound In The World Is The Human Voice.

The Reason [drummers] Call Things "unison", And They Sound Unison, Is Because You Actually Play Two Different Tempos . . . Like You're A Little Sharp, Or A Little Flat; It's So Slight That They Call It "unison", But It's Not Unison.

I Don't Pay No Attention To What Critics Say About Me, The Good Or The Bad. The Toughest Critic I Got Is Myself...and I'm Too Vain To Play Anything I Think Is Bad.

I Would Never Try And Play Like Harry James, Because I Don't Like His Tone - For Me. It's Just White. You Know What I Mean? He Has What We Black Trumpet Players Call A White Sound. But It's For White Music ... I Can Tell A White Trumpet Player, Just Listening To A Record. There'll Be Something He'll Do That'll Let Me Know That He's White.

Music Is An Addiction.

What's Swinging In Words? If A Guy Makes You Pat Your Foot And If You Feel It Down Your Back, You Don't Have To Ask Anybody If That's Good Music Or Not. You Can Always Feel It.

Do Not Fear Mistakes. There Are None.

It Takes You Years To Learn How To Play Like Yourself.

Good Music Is Good No Matter What Kind Of Music It Is.

I Mean, It Makes Me Sick When I See A White Man Sitting There Smiling At Me Being Entertaining, Man. When I Know What He's Gonna Do After He Gets Through. You Know, When You See That Thing On Their Face - Like: "entertain Me." You Know What I Mean? Even The Black Guy That's Trying To Be White - Even He Can Have That Crap On His Face.

Food Makes My Mind Sluggish.

You Can Tell Whether A Person Plays Well Or Not By The Way He Carries The Instrument, Whether It Means Something To Him Or Not.

Americans Don't Like Any Form Of Art, Man. All They Like To Do Is Make Money. They Don't Like Me, Sammy Davis, Or Anybody Else. They Don't Like Nothing. They Just Like Sammy Because He Can Make 'em A Lot Of Money.

If Somebody Told Me I Only Had An Hour To Live, I'd Spend It Choking A White Man. I'd Do It Nice And Slow.

I Can Tell Whether A Person Can Play Just By The Way He Stands.

When The Band Plays Fast, You Play Slow; When The Band Plays Slow, You Play Fast.

Monk Taught Me More About Music Composition Than Anyone Else On 52nd Street.

I Did Bronislaw Kaper's Tune. He Wrote "on Green Dolphin Street." I Mean, I Did All Those Ballads, All Them Ballads From South America. All Those Tunes - The Guitar Concerto On Sketches Of Spain. All Those Are Spanish Melodies. Some Of Them We Made Up Ourselves.

The Melody Is French. But That's The End Of The Record. I Named It "jean Pierre Then There Were None," You Know, Because Of The Big Explosion. You'll Like It. It's A Nice Album.

My Father's Rich, My Momma's Good Looking. Right? And I Can Play The Blues. I've Never Suffered And Don't Intend To Suffer.

It's Not The Notes You Play, It's The Notes You Don't Play.

For Me, Music And Life Are All About Style.

Dave [holland] Plays The Way He Wants To Play. And It's Usually What's Needed. You Know, Dave Is Such A Deep Thinker. You Can't Tell Him Too Much, Else It Might Spoil His Spirit, You Know.

Jazz Is An Uncle Tom Word. They Should Stop Using That Word For Selling. I Told George Wein The Other Day That He Should Stop Using It.

Trane Was The Perfect Saxophonist For Monk's Music Because Of The Space That Monk Always Used. Trane Could Fill Up All That Space With All Them Chords And Sounds He Was Playing Then.

At Least One Day Out Of The Year All Musicans Should Just Put Their Instruments Down, And Give Thanks To Duke Ellington.

The Music Has Gotten Thick. Guys Give Me Tunes And They're Full Of Chords. I Can't Play Them...i Think A Movement In Jazz Is Beginning Away From The Conventional String Of Chords, And A Return To Emphasis On Melodic Rather Than Harmonic Variation. There Will Be Fewer Chords But Infinite Possibilities As To What To Do With Them.

If You're Trying To Be Hip, Be Hip.

It's Not About Standing Still And Becoming Safe. If Anybody Wants To Keep Creating They Have To Be About Change.

I Can Hear What I Want [people] To Play. If You Don't Hear What You Want Someone To Play, Then You Can't Tell 'em.

I Still Got My Ferrari.

You Have To Practice For A Long Time Before You Can Learn To Sound Like Yourself

I Said To [lionel] Richie, "man, My Wife Says You Must Really Respect Women Because You Write Such Beautiful Love Songs."

If You Had To Call It "unison", It Ain't Unison. It Ain't The Same As Somebody Else. If You Can Hear That It's Unison, And You Have To Name It Something Other Than "unison", It Ain't Unison, You Know What I Mean? It's Two Guys Playin', But One Guy Is Playin' Slightly Out Of Tune, One Is Playin' Slightly Off Meter.

I Began To Realize That Some Of The Things Ornette Coleman Had Said About Things Being Played Three Or Fours Ways, Independently Of Each Other, Were True Because Bach Had Also Composed That Way.

The Music Speaks For Itself!

Knowledge Is Freedom And Ignorance Is Slavery

See, If You Put A Musician In A Place Where He Has To Do Something Different From What He Does All The Time, Then He Can Do That - But He's Got To Think Differently In Order To Do It. He's Got To Play Above What He Knows - Far Above It. I've Always Told The Musicians In My Band To Play What They Know And Then Play Above That. Because Then Anything Can Happen, And That's Where Great Art And Music Happens.

If You Hit A Wrong Note, It's The Next Note That You Play That Determines If It's Good Or Bad.

Some Musicians Play With Their Heart, You Know What I Mean? I Don't Know What To Tell A Person That Can't - If You Can't Tell A Person What You're Talkin' About When They're Rushin' Or Droppin' The Tempo, You Get Somebody Else.

Some Of [drummers] Drop Time Because They Want To Hear What You're Doin'.

Don't Play What's There, Play What's Not There.

African American

The Thing To Judge In Any Jazz Artist Is, Does The Man Project And Does He Have Ideas.

Bebop Didn't Have The Humanity Of Duke Ellington. It Didn't Even Have That Recognizable Thing. Bird And Diz Were Great, Fantastic, Challenging — But They Weren't Sweet.

Jazz Is Like Blues With A Shot Of Heroin!

[jazz Musicians] Feel Comfortable With Their Clichés, You Know.

I'm Not Messing Around With Nobody's Woman. If I Want A Woman I Go Get Her - You Know What I Mean?

You Can Dominate A Game If You Dominate On The Line... We're Just Going To Have To Go Out There And Work Hard And Blow People Off The Ball, And Let Our Runners Do What They Do Best.

It's Always Been A Gift With Me, Hearing Music The Way I Do. I Don't Know Where It Comes From, It's Just There And I Don't Question It.

In Europe, They Like Everything You Do. The Mistakes And Everything. That's A Little Bit Too Much.

I Don't Care If A Dude Is Purple With Green Breath As Long As He Can Swing.

If You Have To Ask, You'll Never Know.

If You Got Up On The Bandstand At Minton's And Couldn't Play, You Were Not Only Going To Be Embarrassed By The People Ignoring You Or Booing You, You Might Get Your Ass Kicked.

Don't Worry About Playing A Lot Of Notes. Just Find One Pretty One.

I Know What I've Done For Music, But Don't Call Me A Legend. Just Call Me Miles Davis.

Drummers - Sometimes They Play And They Listen. And That Little Listen Takes A Speck Away From The Right Tempo.

I've Gotten Hernias From Drummers When They Drop Tempo.

If You're Going To Drop Behind, You Have To Keep It There.

White Folks Always Think That You Have To Have A Label On Everything - You Know What I Mean?

It's Like, How Did Columbus Discover America When The Indians Were Already Here? What Kind Of S-- Is That, But White People's S--?

Japanese People They Hear My Warmin' Up And They Start Screamin'. They Can Tell It's Me.it's My Tone On The Trumpet, It Sounds Like I'm Speakin'.

I Keep Telling Ron Lorman And Them In The Control Room, "it's My Band! The Reason I Have A Band Is Because I Can't Stand For Somebody To Tell Me What To Do."

Music Is A Funny Thing When You Really Come To Think About It.

I Can Tell. I'm Gifted With That, You Know. When I Hear That The Tempo Is Slightly Off, It's Hard For Me.

You Know Why I Quit Playing Ballads? Cause I Love Playing Ballads.

I Don't Hold It Against Dizzy [gillespie], You Know, But If A Guy Wants To Play A Certain Way, You Work Towards That. If He Stops - He's Full Of Crap, You Know. I Mean, I Wouldn't Do It, For No Money, Or For No Place In The White Man's World. Not Just To Make Money, Because Then You Don't Have Anything. You Don't Have As Much Money As Whoever You're Trying To Ape; That's Making Money By Being Commercial. Then You Don't Have Anything To Give The World; So You're Not Important. You Might As Well Be Dead.

Look, Man, All I Am Is A Trumpet Player.

So What Or Kind Of Blue Were Done In That Era, The Right Hour, The Right Day. It's Over; It's On The Record.

If You Love Them In The Morning With Their Eyes Full Of Crust; If You Love Them At Night With Their Hair Full Of Rollers, Chances Are, You're In Love.

In Improvisation, There Are No Mistakes.

Sometimes [playing Free] Doesn't Happen, Because Maybe A Guy's Wife'll Come In, You Know, And His Ego Will Catch Him. If Everybody's Completely Just Straight-without Any Old Ladies Over Here, A Fourth Of Whisky Over There; If It's Balanced Right, It'll Come Off. It Has To Be. But When You Get Egos Involved With Playing Free, You Can't Do It.

A Legend Is An Old Man With A Cane Known For What He Used To Do. I'm Still Doing It.

Always Listen For What You Can Leave Out.

You Have To Be Born With It. You Can't Even Buy It. If You Could Buy It, They'd Have It At The Next Newport Festival.

As Long As I've Been Playing, They Never Say I Done Anything. They Always Say That Some White Guy Did It.

Do Not Be Afraid Of Errors. There Are No Errors.

I Really Liked Wynton When I First Met Him. He's Still A Nice Young Man, Only Confused.

The Only Way A Drum Machine Will Get Out Of Beat Is For You Not To Pay Your Electric Bill.

The Only Reason To Write A New Song Is Because You're Tired Of The Old Ones.

My Ego Only Needs A Good Rhythm Section

Like Ron Lorman's Always Sayin', "na-na-na-na-na," You Know What I Mean? I Don't Need That In The Studio.

He Sounded To Me Like He's Supposed To Be The Savior Of Jazz. Sometimes People Speak As Though Someone Asked Them A Question. Well, No One Asked Him A Question.

Somebody, My Daughter Or My Wife, Gave Me A Music Box For Christmas. It Plays "my Funny Valentine" On Celeste, You Know? So I Had Bobby [irving] Just Play "jean Pierre" With The Changes On Celeste.

A Painting Is Music You Can See And Music Is A Painting You Can Hear.

Maybe You Play A Melody Twice. You Play It Once Like You Like It, And Some Parts That You Don't Like You Can Just Switch. An Eight-bar Motive - You Can Just Take It And Put It In The Front Or Back Or Something Like That. It Can Save You 50 Or 60 Or 70,000 Dollars, A Drum Machine. That's Why Everybody Uses It.

Joao Gilberto On Guitar Could Read A Newspaper And Sound Good.

First You Imitate, Then You Innovate.

I Gave The Album [you're Under Arrest] To Quincy Jones And He Loved "d Train". We Couldn't Call It "d Train"; It's Called "mdi/something's On Your Mind/md2". That's On The Album.

I Never Thought That The Music Called "jazz" Was Ever Meant To Reach Just A Small Group Of People, Or Become A Museum Thing Locked Under Glass Like All The Other Dead Things That Were Once Considered Artistic.

I Always Listen To What I Can Leave Out.

I Like Stan [getz], Because He Has So Much Patience, The Way He Plays Those Melodies - Other People Can't Get Nothing Out Of A Song, But He Can, Which Takes A Lot Of Imagination.

I'm Out There Doing The Best That I Can, My Lip Is Cut And I'm Still Playing.

Some Day I'm Gonna Call Me Up On The Phone, So When I Answer, I Can Tell Myself To Shut Up.

When You Work With Great Musicians, They Are Always A Part Of You . . . Their Spirits Are Walking Around In Me, So They're Still Here And Passing It On To Others.

There Are No Wrong Notes.

That's The Way Women Do. The Frown. They Want To Give You The Attitude To Approach Them Back, By Giving You A Negative Vibe.

Everybody Ought To Listen To Benny [carter]. He's A Whole Musical Education.

You Can't Eat A Winner's Plaque.

There Are No Wrong Notes In Jazz: Only Notes In The Wrong Places.

When Kids Don't Learn About Their Own Heritage In School, They Just Don't Care About School... But You Won't See It In The History Books Unless We Get The Power To Write Our Own History And Tell Our Story Ourselves.

Music Is The Framework Around The Silence.

Certain Drummers Drop Time, And I Like To Play On Top Of The Beat.

Jazz Is The Big Brother Of Revolution. Revolution Follows It Around.

Monk Was A Gentle Person, Gentle And Beautiful, But He Was Strong As An Ox. And If I Had Ever Said Something About Punching Monk Out In Front Of His Face - And I Never Did - Then Somebody Should Have Just Come And Got Me And Taken Me To The Madhouse, Because Monk Could Have Just Picked My Little Ass Up And Thrown Me Through A Wall.

You Ever Hear Buddy Miles Play The Drums? You Know, He Doesn't Vary The Tempo At All.

Sometimes, If You Ask People To "go Downstairs And Get Me This Or That," They'll Say, "it's Rainin" Or "it Might Rain," Or "there's Some Bumpy Roads On The Road," Or Bla-bla-bla. They Give You All Those Excuses, So When They Do Something Which Is Easy, You're Supposed To Say, "damn, You Did That?"

If You Understood Everything I Say, You'd Be Me!

Anybody Can Play. The Note Is Only 20 Percent. The Attitude Of The Motherfucker Who Plays It Is 80 Percent.

The Way You Change And Help Music Is By Tryin' To Invent New Ways To Play

We're Not Going To Play The Blues Anymore. Let The White Folks Play The Blues. They Got 'em, So They Can Keep 'em.

It's A Different Ballgame Now, So That Lets [teo] Macero Out. He's Always Complainin', Always Sick.

I've Always Told The Musicians In My Band To Play What They Know And Then Play Above That. Because Then Anything Can Happen, And That's Where Great Art And Music Happens.

You Can't Compete With Sweets' Sound And Time Feel. It's Impossible.

Sometimes You Have To Play A Long Time To Be Able To Play Like Yourself.

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